After nearly three years as Jon Gruden’s unwanted stepchild, Derek Carr suddenly had all the leverage. Carr was an afterthought in Las Vegas, an inherited quarterback forced to play second fiddle to a high-profile head coach who liked the Raiders’ franchise — and the $100 million contract it gave him — much more than the Raiders’ roster.
Carr didn’t suffer the ignominy of being shipped away a season after being the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year like Khalil Mack. Instead, he mostly suffered in silence as his head coach, empowered to make personnel decisions, brought in quarterbacks like Marcus Mariota and Nathan Peterman as unofficial statements about the team’s future. Mariota, a man run out of Nashville despite an offense that made Ryan Tannehill one of the league’s most efficient passers, signed a deal that made him the league’s highest-paid backup quarterback in 2020. Peterman, a man who is Nathan Peterman, signed a contract with an NFL team that wasn’t an elaborate Impractical Jokers bit.
By extension, Carr was replaceable despite the fact he was only in his late 20s, was a former viable MVP candidate (2016), and was the engine behind the franchise’s lone playoff appearance since 2002. If not for his affordable $25 million salary, he may have been dismissed wholesale during the Vegas makeover that put Gruden at the center of the team’s solar system.
